Hybrid cardiac procedures are a result of synergistic cooperation between the cardiologist and surgeon. They are a combination of surgical repair and intraoperative catheter-based interventions, and may provide an effective option for the repair of complex congenital heart lesions. We present a 30-year-old man with pulmonary atresia and a ventricular septal defect. He previously had a Waterston...

The pulmonary artery catheter has been widely used in anesthesiology and critical care medicine. Until recently, only retrospective or relatively weak prospective studies examining its effect on outcome had been performed. Over the past 6 years, however, a number of well-designed prospective trials and statistically sound retrospective studies have been completed. All of these show no benefit a...

Pulmonary Artery Catheterization (PAC) is a commonly performed procedure. It is used when hemodynamic and other cardiac measures must be accurately monitored in seriously ill patients. A flow-directed, balloon-tipped (Swan-Ganz) catheter is typically inserted into a major vein, passed through the heart, and into the pulmonary artery. This procedure is normally not performed under fluoroscopy. I...

IN THE 2 companion papers, we have considered some effects of acute hypoxia on the pulmonary circulation. The present study, concerned with the effects of acute hypercapnia on the pulmonary eirculation, was prompted by 2 prospects: (1) that an acute increase in alveolar and arterial P 0, brought about by the inhalation of air enriched with carbon dioxide, might simulate the effects on the pulmo...

Variation in pulmonary artery pressure has important consequences for the interpretation of isolated pressure measurements in patients with chronic heart failure. To investigate the nature of diurnal variation in pulmonary artery pressure in chronic heart failure, eight angina-free men (aged 50-72 years) with treated chronic heart failure caused by ischaemic heart disease underwent continuous a...

The axillary vein route was investigated prospectively for percutaneous pulmonary artery catheterization in 79 patients who underwent 83 attempts. Forty nine of these patients were tracheostomized and under mechanical ventilation and eight had hemostasis disorders. Successful catheterization was achieved 74 times in the 79 patients. Pulmonary artery was reached within 6 +/- 2.1 min after the ca...

cialist in the cardiac care unit and cardiac observation unit at UCLA Medical Center and is an assistant professor of nursing at the UCLA School of Nursing, Los Angeles, Calif. by a computer and converted into a measurement of cardiac output. Cardiac output is inversely proportional to the area under the curve. The normal cardiac output curve has a rapid smooth upstroke and a gradual downstroke...

A 37-yr-old female presented with a history of several months of exertional dyspnoea. A diagnosis of primary pulmonary hypertension was suspected on the basis of a negative extensive cardiorespiratory work-up with a systolic pulmonary artery pressure of 41-46 mmHg calculated from repeated measurement of the maximum velocity of tricuspid regurgitation jets at 2.8-3 m x s(-1) by continuous-wave D...

The use of Swan-Ganz catheters has increased tremendously since they were first introduced in 1970. Their ability to give vital hemodynamic measurements in critically ill patients makes their use invaluable when providing quality medical care. The formation of pulmonary artery (PA) pseudoaneurysm from a Swan-Ganz catheter-induced perforation of the PA is a rare but potentially fatal complicatio...